


New Names

by dearestones (Devin_Trinidad)



Category: Akudama Drive (Anime)
Genre: As requested on Tumblr, Character Death, Gen, Tumblr request, and a little introspection on the culture of akudama and how they get their names, here's some thoughts about her and Courier's relationship, remember courier's guardian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:49:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29752953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devin_Trinidad/pseuds/dearestones
Summary: He doesn’t have a name yet. Not one with significant meaning, that is.He has one, of course. The one that he was born with and has been noted in the civil registry. A name that has been recorded and placed within the vast archives of the Seal Center. But it’s not a name that he’s proud of.
Relationships: Courier (Akudama Drive) and Courier's Caretaker, Courier (Akudama Drive) and Courier's Guardian
Kudos: 6





	New Names

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous Request: Maybe something for Courier and his mom/guardian back when she was alive?

He doesn’t have a name yet. Not one with significant meaning, that is.

He has one, of course. The one that he was born with and has been noted in the civil registry. A name that has been recorded and placed within the vast archives of the Seal Center. But it’s not a name that he’s proud of. 

It’s simple, traditional. Something that doesn’t ring well with him—something that tells him that he’s nothing more than a normal child. 

But he’s not just a child.

He’s a wayward cog built into a machine that wants nothing to do with him. 

For a city that preaches about the safety of their citizens and the continued cooperation from the general public, Kansai doesn’t bat an eye when he falls through the cracks and is raised in the slums. Even his caretaker, someone who no longer has a civilian name, but rather a title that strips her of any characteristic other than the one thing that led her down the rabbit hole of illegality and corruption was someone who used to parade around the upper rings of society. 

It’s not worth it, she says tiredly. We’ve both been corrupted by poverty and the trash down here. 

She’s not corrupted, though, the boy says. 

She huffs at him, all cold lines and cynicism as she lights a cigarette. Plumes of smoke caress the air like sensual dancers trying to entice seedy businessmen into dishing out more money into their pockets. 

Really, you’re not, the boy tries to plead. If he were any younger (and he is so very young), he would have stamped his foot hard into the ground to make a point. But he doesn’t. 

He’s more than a child. 

He’s the scum under the shoe of pasty, overweight politicians who live off the backs of those who live and die in the bowels of a Kansai that no one in the middle and upper echelons have any business of knowing. He doesn’t belong in a society that doesn’t accept him. He belongs—

He belongs with this woman who sneers at him in derision in the daylight, who chides him for not making enough money on good days and who holds him tight and combs through his greasy hair on terrible nights. 

She has a name, but she isn’t willing to share hers. 

You have to come up with something on your own, she tells him with practiced wisdom that comes with age and experience. Of course, she mutters through the cigarette that she absentmindly puffs, you could always just wait until the Executioners take note of you. 

It’s the one other thing that they’re good at, you know?

Names. 

Sometimes, the boy wonders if his caretaker is proud of what she has accomplished and done throughout her life. She’s fairly young, actually. Wrinkles and permanent scars aren’t as apparent as the other scoundrels that they have come across, but she’s unbearably defeated and downtrodden by the dregs of society. A new name, he knows, is a sign of no going back. Even if you were born into this lifestyle, there’s still stories of moving up through the social ladder, of goody-two-shoes bottom of the barrel scum somehow clawing their way out of the sewers and into the light. 

But not everyone has the capacity or the patience to do that.

So, they become scum that society fears. 

Akudama.

She says quietly.

Akudama.

He says with a reverent awe that one usually reserves for the Shinkansen. 

She glares down at him for his childlike awe but still ruffles his hair and pushes him out the door for his next assignment. 

One day, she reminds him, as he huffs at her for such roughness. One day you’ll either make a name for yourself or you’ll become the next Courier.

The boy rolls his eyes. 

She would have to retire first before he could inherit her name.

Not once does he consider that she would die and that her name would feel like a brand cutting deep into his skin as it chains him to his fate and new name forever. 

As an Akudama.

As Courier. 

  
  
  



End file.
